Author: Faiza Ansari

Grant Park is a large public park spanning 319 acres situated in the city’s central business area. Its evolution reveals a complex web of civic resolve and urban planning. Chicago’s park system was greatly affected by Frederick Law Olmsted, who is most known for his work on Central Park in New York. However, his successors and other notable landscape architects had a greater direct influence on Grant Park’s design. Initial Vision As Chicago grew quickly in the middle of the 19th century, municipal planners realized that public green areas were necessary. Lake Park, a little strip of land along Lake…

Daniel Libeskind is a deconstructivist architect whose work showcases sharp angles, distortion, and conceptual storytelling. Using deconstructivism, his architectural style places a strong emphasis on emotional and cultural effect, producing designs that recall memories and tell tales. His art embraces angular shapes, resists conventional geometry, and aims to emotionally engage the viewer. Jewish Museum, Berlin His debut project, Jewish Museum Berlin, is perhaps the purest form of his angular language, fascinating the world with its striking zigzag form. The voids slicing through the structure are not functional, they are negative spaces of memory, mimicking absence. World Trade Centre Master Plan,…

Michael Graves (1934–2015), one of the most prominent architects of the late 20th century, is well-known for his contributions to Postmodernism. Graves promoted colourful, textural, and ornamental designs that deliberately restored aspects that Modernism had fiercely rejected. This was also an outright rejection of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s “less is more,” to which Graves famously said, “less is a bore”. By designing places that were practical and emotionally impactful, he aimed to close the gap between abstract theories and the real-world human experience. According to Graves, structures ought to communicate with people; they represent memory, culture, and narrative. The…

Currently located at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, a glass storefront houses a huge, shimmering thing that coils and unfolds at the crossroads of 3rd Street. Not exactly a dragon or a storm, and most definitely not static. A digitally created sculpture of tremendous presence and nuance, Leviathan is the most recent site-specific project by FUTUREFORMS, which is led by Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno. It evokes wonder, curiosity, and uneasiness in addition to commanding attention with its form and the cultural weight it bears. Presented in collaboration with the San Francisco Travel Association and the Moscone Center,…

The Met Gala, a worldwide display of creativity, has long served as a platform for advancing fashion. Although its themes frequently serve as inspiration for stunning traditional workmanship, more recent research has revealed a more substantive progression. The “robotic spine” that Mona Patel wore to a recent Met Gala is a fascinating example of how wearable technology and kinetic design can go hand-in-hand. The robotic spine, designed by Lisa Jiang and Timothy A. Boll, is a gear-driven mechanism built into a specially fitting corset to move with the body rather than against it. A piece of futuristic design, resembling the…

Saudi Arabia, a nation rich in oil and heritage, is beginning to reframe itself as a patron of architecture. In line with several monumental projects, the Kingdom is investing heavily in infrastructure, kickstarting economic diversification and global relevance. One such project is a symbol of ambition, a singular silhouette, emerging at the edge of the Red Sea. A megatall skyscraper in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a part of the larger Jeddah Economic City plan. Jeddah is the country’s most vital link to worldwide trade via sea channels, making it economically significant. Designed by a Chicago-based practice, Adrian…

The Albanian Football Association (FSHF), the Albanian government, and the Albanian Development Fund (FSHZH) collaborated to organize a competition in 2023. The competition sought creative ideas for renovating Albania’s Niko Dovana Stadium and its surrounding space. MVRDV presented a design proposal for the renovation of Albania’s Niko Dovana Stadium, notable for its creative integration of urban life and sports infrastructure, to transform the stadium into a lively and sustainable multifunctional neighborhood. A Stadium Woven Into Urban Life The stadium is made to appear as a bowl-shaped extension of the surrounding neighbourhood. MVRDV Super Stadium proposal highlights rooftop tribunes atop nearby buildings, large…

The French Capital, the city of love or the city of lights, is not merely a city but a grandeur in itself.  Popularly known for it’s iconic structures like Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Plaza de la  Concorde, etc., is also famous for it’s romantic getaways, boulevards, mesmerizing avenues, grand buildings, parks, cosy roadside cafés, public squares and a very renowned photogenic location, Louvre Pyramid.  Paris has a long story to tell, dating back to the 17th century. Just like every other city, its history involves different opinions, but as they aptly say, “Though you may leave Paris, Paris never…